ver named bruce that she can re-name james... faster, james! [ male announcer ] ...just 'cause. download zeebox free, and have the night of your life with your tv. john i'm up feeding alex's twins. >> yeah, here's who we're talking about, the alex just seated next to john tower. how are they doing? man, they're cute. how are they doing? >> they're doing great. >> i fully support that. we should point out to you, allison, alex likes to lead you to believe he's working all day, he's wagering on sports in his office, online gambling, and playing sudoku and then rolls home late after a night of drinks. "morning joe" starts right now. . one of the great pleasures of thursday night was watching

how many different ways biden implied paul ryan was lying without really saying the word lie. >> not a single thing he said was accurate. that's a bizarre statement. what are they talking about? i wish he would just tell -- be a little more candid. >> our -- >> with all due respect, that's a bunch of -- >> with all due respect, that's a bunch of malarky. that's such a weird combination of gangster and old-timey irish coloquialism. with all due respect, that's a bunch of malarky. hey, not for nothing, top of the morning to ya. >> good morning. it's tuesday, october 16th.

debate day in america. today we're going to be talking about shifting polls, rumblings of a possible shift in the election map and also a secretary of state taking the fall for a benghazi story that won't go away as you take a live look at time square. going to have a nicer day in new york today. we have mike barnicle. mark haleprin, also national affairs editor for "new york" magazine, john heilemann. also pulitzer prize winning historian jon meacham. we have three weeks to go until election day. and tonight, obviously, is the big debate. it's going to be a town hall-style debate. and some new polls are out. let's take a look at, again, we've got a shift possibly in the electoral map. this morning, a new "usa today" gallup poll shows growing momentum for mitt romney in the

key battleground states, including ohio, florida, and virginia. the poll has romney pulling ahead by four points among likely voters. 50% to 46%. this is obviously a big shift. it's only one poll. but perhaps the bigger take away from this poll and some others is how the candidates are ranking among likely woman voters in those battleground states. we've heard an awful lot about the gender gap since the primary season, but among likely female voters in swing states, mitt romney's pulling almost even with the president. 48% to 49%, among male voters in the swing states, romney has an eight-point lead over the president. mark, let's start with you. you're reporting right now that senior democratic officials are starting to talk to you about real concern about the possibility of a buckeye state slipping away from the obama campaign. of course, you talk to democrats, mark, and they'll tell you they're always overly

concerned. the polls still show barack obama well ahead. but they're starting to see florida definitely shift in the polls and now they're afraid this may be happening in ohio. tell us why as we -- as we're, you know, we have got a huge debate tonight and also talk about that electoral map. >> well, look, there were two mondaymenta fundamentals keeping the president as the heavy favorite. one was the electoral college and the fact he started with a larger base, governor romney really needed to win almost all of the toss-ups. and the second thing he had a big advantage of was defining mitt romney as an unacceptable choice. you couldn't vote for mitt romney and romney was going to have a ceiling. the first debate had such an impact on making romney seem like an acceptable choice and also now has changed the balance in the electoral college. if governor romney is able to win three southern states, florida, virginia, and ohio. look at all of that red, that

gets him to 266, if he can take ohio, and i talked to two democrats yesterday who think it's possible that the president's position in ohio will erode to such an extent he could lose it. 266 means all governor romney would need to do was win one of the five toss-ups in yellow. and that's a huge change. that map gives governor romney the electoral college advantage that the president has long enjoyed. >> we should be clear you're not calling ohio right now. >> no, not at all. >> this is a scenario. >> but i was struck yesterday at how some democrats now believe what had been a clear advantage in ohio for a long time is now something that is eroded. governor romney, if he's an acceptable choice not just nationally, but in ohio, he's a candidate in a state that elected a republican governor, a republican senator in contested races. >> you're seeing -- mentioned how big a debate this is, this is yet another reason why beyond all of the symbolic, you know,

stumbles last time and now needs to come back, to change the narrative, you know, we're getting down to where this race is where we actually all thought it was going to be for the last, up until the conventions. anybody at this table would've said, wow, this is going to be a razor close election, the ground game's going to matter. turnout's going to matter. the map's going to be tight. and then for, you know, six weeks we thought, wow, things have fundamentally changed. we're back to that original conception matters. and this is not a little thing. willie talked about how historically the debate audiences rise. this is more likely because to the extent to which people around the country, whether they like president obama, don't like president obama, or are undecided about what they think, they want to know can he rise to the challenge. and the onus of the challenge is very clearly on the president

because of the failure before and because of the erosion across the battleground states. >> yeah. john heilemann yesterday said something i've also been saying. as we get further away from the first debate, barack obama's failure took on sort of an urban legend. had an urban legend feel to it where the night of the debate you're going, boy, he's off. you know, i had a guy, a big democrat yesterday come up to me going i think the president's suffering from depression. really? he just had an off night. reagan had an off night in '84. but it did really change the dynamic of this race and has gotten everybody to the point now where even democrats are starting to see this slip away. talk about historically, how quickly that narrative the change in one night. if mitt romney looks awkward tonight. if he can't interact with the audience well. if he does what 41 did, he looks at the watch, looks board. talk about how huge tonight is. it can also go, of course, the

other way, if mitt romney has a great night tonight and barack obama looks awkward around all these people, then you really could start to see slipping of support. but tonight, this is one of the biggest debates given the dynamics of this race, i think, probably since 1980. >> it is. and it's the second as opposed to the only one. but, you know, in terms of denver, i mean, it's also true that it may not have seemed as bad first until the numbers kept pouring in. that's one thing to think about with the president. yes, i suppose romney could come out and reignite the stiff, richy rich thing and say if you need a job, you can come work in my car elevator. seems pretty unlikely he's going to do that. so this is the president's to change, i think. and it feels to me as though

what -- to go to mark's point, what happened in the past two weeks is that what political scientists have said and what i think a lot of us have thought. in an environment that is so fundamentally anti-incumbent by every statistical measure, the economy, the right track/wrong track, and has been for so long, people have been looking for a reason, a plausible reason, responsible reason to vote against the president. it wouldn't have mattered who the president was, to vote against the incumbent and obama gave that to them in denver. and now we'll see if -- i don't know how many times people have used this cliche, but i'll stake it out for the first time, can romney begin to close a deal tonight? >> yeah. and jon meacham, that's a great question. it was also a great 1914 reference, it's 6:07 in the morning, and we thank you for that. >> here to help. >> mike barnicle, i'm sorry he stole your reference from you,

but tell us what you're thinking about tonight. and again, these shifting polls. >> well, you know, joe, yesterday was a day when people actually returned my phone calls. so i might bring a little more to the table today. >> one day of every year. >> it's about time. >> what was that like? >> it was unusual. it was a busy day for me. >> barnicle's like, oh, what's that sound? oh, it's a ringing phone. >> one point that john heilemann made, we are now at a point in this election where we all thought we'd be months ago. it's going to be very close, it is going to be a jump ball election. but an ecdotally and from talkig to people, you get the feeling when these guys sit down to write "game change 2," the focus on what happened in denver is going to be enormous, i think, and that's what you hear. what happened in denver, clearly, and jon meacham alluded to it, the president of the united states made mitt romney a plausible alternative. made him a plausible

alternative. and as a other states very mh in play for governor romney. the president of the united states, again, from speaking to people yesterday and looking at the internals of their own polls, appeared not to want the job as much as governor romney did. and it had a huge ripple effect apparently within this country. so we're at the point now where tonight is just as you indicated as important debate as we've had since 1980. >> mark, do you agree that one thing the president does have going for him tonight is not just expectations that whatever he does, if it's positive at all, it will be a success, but that he does have not only democrats, but let's be honest, some members, many members of the media poised to say he's back, this is a redemption story. he's back, he's done it, he's back in command of this race, don't you think that takes hold almost regardless of what happens tonight? >> i don't think so.

i think the expectations aren't that the president's somehow a horrible communicator and horrible in debates. i don't think he's benefitting from low expectations. and the second point, putting my finger on the pulse of the media wing of the gang of 500 and trying to psych out what you're talking about, i actually don't think so. i think the press prefers the narrative right now. just telling you. i think the press prefers the narrative right now of the president unable to figure out how to master doing a debate. i think there's just as much interest in that narrative to the extent that influences coverage as there is a comeback story. maybe the comeback story for the third debate, but i don't think he's got some big advantage either in the press psyche or the public mood. >> aren't we going to look pretty silly tomorrow morning, everybody going to look silly, the press, the gang of 500, everybody, if the president shows up and seems engaged? he hasn't gotten here by accident. what's the bill clinton -- >> turtle on a fence post.

>> a turtle on a fence post didn't get there by accident. well, barack obama didn't make history by accident, right? do we think he's going to be flat two nights in a row? >> there's no way. >> he won't be. >> are the expectations going to be so low. >> he won't be flat. the biggest challenge is describing a second term agenda. i'm almost certain that candy will pick some questions that require the president to talk about what he would do in a second term, why it would be different than the first term in places people don't like. and it's not a question of being flat, it's a question of he still hasn't found a way to answer that question to the satisfaction of a lot of voters. >> let me take a mild exception to two things being said. i agree with mark about the media, but it's always the case the media wants to write the story about mitt romney not being able to connect with real people. and this is something jon meacham mentioned will he will or will not be able to do to. it's a fair and intuitive assumption that he will not talk about his car elevator or whatever. but fair and reasonable assumptions have not played in

the past to mitt romney's ability to communicate to real people very often. the possibility that some voter will ask him a question that makes him seem out of touch, makes him seem like he can't relate to a normal, average voter is high. we've seen lots of examples over the last year and a half. >> and i am told in one of the debate sessions at one point, he was taking a mock question and said to the vote, excuse me, sir, may i have some gray poupon. >> whether governor romney can close the deal. it's a little too early to say that. he's still -- he's still behind. >> yeah. >> in almost -- by almost every metric. he's made huge gains from where he was two weeks ago. we had a poll yesterday, just said let's not be totally -- yesterday had the president ahead having made a gain of one point according to its national poll according to where he was before the debate. >> and john, the most important thing there too, talk about it,

we've been talking about for a year now, that the president can't get over 50%. so this abc news/washington post poll shows he's cracking 50% in a lot of the key areas. again, i think this romney surge is real in florida. i think it's going to be real in north carolina. i think it's real in virginia. i do think that mitt romney's making some great gains. but again, we've got a different poll every day, and you look at the abc news washington post poll yesterday, he's over 50% and strong for the first time in a long time. so we have to wait a couple of days to see how all this stuff shakes out, right? >> yes, the 51% approval rating was -- one of the number of things in that poll yesterday the president could take comfort in. another was the fact that the president still after a year of being behind mitt romney on the question of who would better handle the economy is now ahead of mitt romney, and the right track/wrong track number is trending in exactly the right direction for the president. still more people say wrong track, but it's now in the low 50s as opposed to the mid-60s where it was six months ago.

so, you know, look, no one's ready -- no one is on the brink of closing this deal right now. neither of them. they're both in a very, very tight race, the president's still slightly ahead. but that's, again, that's why this debate matters so much because no one's exactly ready to close anything. >> right. >> but it is romney having to -- acknowledge the cliche, close the deal on his plausible run here. >> yes. i agree with that. totally. >> yeah. so let's talk about, willie, an issue that's definitely going to come up tonight. this benghazi story. you've really -- you've been talking about it from the very beginning. and the twists and turns and the story line and the narrative changing out of the white house every day, this story just won't go away. and it took a really dramatic turn yesterday, didn't it? >> yeah, well, here we are more than a month now. it happened on september 11th at the consulate in benghazi. and yesterday, the secretary of

state, the united states, hillary clinton coming out to take blame. the obama administration under steady fire about conflicting statements about what exactly happened last month. and now secretary clinton is out stepping out to take the blame. here's what she said yesterday in peru. >> i take responsibility. i'm in charge of the state department, 60,000 plus people all over the world, 275 posts. the president and the vice president certainly wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. they're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision. and what i want to avoid is some kind of political gotcha or blame game going on because that does a disservice to the thousands and thousands of americans, not only in the state department and usaid, and americans who serve around the world. >> in a joint statement, quote,

this is a laudable gesture talking about what secretary clinton did yesterday, especially when the white house is trying to avoid any responsibility whatsoever. eric erickson writing this headline, hillary clinton prepares to see underside of obama bus. meanwhile, the obama administration's reporting the white house has moved armed drones into position, north africa put special ops on standby. the military weighing how it will react should investigators find a militant group responsible for the death of chris stevens and three other americans, john. >> can i say, it seems to me that secretary clinton's statement is the first mature, effective thing the administration has said about this. and it strikes me as the act of someone who is taking responsibility, as she says, and doing her job. is the president ultimately responsible?

yes, as president kennedy said, i'm the responsible officer of the military. but throwing her under the bus is wrong because to me she looks strong, rational. those are things we have not seen to describe the administration to the reaction of this story. >> and joe, part of the problem comes from the debate last week when vice president biden said we didn't know they asked for more security. when the officials had testified they asked for more security, so the white house came out with a clarification saying the white house didn't know about the request, that was a state department issue. they've been all over the place on this. >> they have. and i don't think this is going to affect the outcome of the election by any stretch of the imagination. americans are concerned about getting back to work and the economy improving. but it really does go to the strength of a leader. jimmy carter's strength was requested during the crisis that went on for 444 days.

this obviously is not going to have an impact like that. but i really do think, john heilemann, it's going to be a problem if you have president obama pointing at hillary clinton and trying to take the tact that joe biden took which is like, hey, the buck doesn't stop with us. when you've got americans overseas that are in danger and they ask for more security and it's denied. i mean, we all know that of course the president and the vice president aren't going to be asked about beefing up security. oh, i've got to say, benghazi is not like some outpost that is not thought about that much. this is not just a sort of administrative issue. this is obviously a very tumultuous region where we engaged in military action. you know, a couple of months ago. so how does -- how do you think the president handles this tonight if benghazi comes up?

he can't point fingers at hillary clinton or proclaim ignorance, can he? >> no. i don't think he can. the fact -- the facts -- you talk about, joe, you're a lawyer, when you're in a courtroom and you've got bad facts. you know, that's just your problem. you've got -- these guys have bad facts in this case. and i agree with you it's not going to change the outcome of the election, i also agree with you that it matters. but for no other reason there are four dead americans involved in this case. there's a lot of questions -- a lot of discussion about secretary clinton being quote thrown under the bus. as jon meacham said, i think she's doing the responsible thing. but what will president obama do in the debate? i think the most effective thing he could do and wouldn't surprise me a bit if he stood up and said, i appreciate what secretary clinton said yesterday, but she's not responsible. i am responsible. i'm not responsible for every single security decision that gets made, but i'm ultimately responsible.

the buck does stop with me and i think it would be politically effective and substantially accurate thing to say. >> mike barnicle, also, i think when politicians do this, when hillary clinton did this yesterday. guess what. she is right. she is secretary of state. but people respect her more for standing up and saying that. and politicians don't seem to get this. the politicians standing up saying that is a very gracious thing for hillary clinton to say. but as harry truman said, the buck stops here, it is my responsibility and we're going to get to the bottom of this. we're going to figure this out. but they've got to figure it out fast, mike. >> yeah, but you don't get that language out of a focus group. and the way campaigns are run you get information from focus groups. john heilemann is right in terms of the context of the president taking responsibility for it. and if they think it out, it's

also a potential net plus for the president because he can talk about the volatility and the danger in this world, especially in that area of the world and things that a president has to deal with on a minute-by-minute basis. not a weekly basis, monthly basis, a minute-by-minute basis. >> he can cast it in the context of having to make hard decisions in the past that have worked out. there's a way to both look strong by taking the blame and also place it in a context of hard foreign policy decisions where he's put american lives in jeopardy that has worked out for the country's benefit. >> every once in a while the truth works. >> yes. not often, but yes. >> speak for yourself. >> maybe for you. >> who is this man we've invited on our set? coming up next, we've got the chairman of the republican national committee, reince priebus.

also former strategist for the mccain campaign steve schmidt will be here. robert gibbs, and chuck todd. up next, we've got an exclusive new look at the top stories in the playbook, but first, let's go to bill karins. he's got a check on the forecast. bill, pretty nice day today in new york, but ugly elsewhere, right? >> yeah, a little bit windy in the northern plains, stormy in the northwest. but we are getting rid of this storm system that kicked through new england yesterday. and we can thank that storm for pushing hurricane rafael away from the eastern sea board. this became a hurricane yesterday in between bermuda and puerto rico. strong storm, it's about 800 or so miles off the east coast and heading away from us. that's good, just some large waves. i mentioned that storm in new england is leaving, the rain is done in boston, just about over on cape cod, a little bit of light rain for you up there in maine this morning. the forecast for today, looks like a beautiful fall day from d.c. to baltimore, philly, all the way up through new york city and all of new england. and as far as the rest of the

country goes, we have a very strong storm coming through the northern rockies, a lot of dangerous winds there and some rain. but the rest of the country looks gorgeous. warm air from california all the way through texas through the southeast. check out these temperatures. this looks like a map you'd see maybe in september instead of the middle of october. 94 in phoenix, 83 in kansas city, enjoy a great day from dallas all the way through atlanta. probably be one of the warmer days we have for a while. you're watching "morning joe" on this tuesday morning, we're brewed by starbucks. humans -- even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems.

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welcome back to "morning joe." let's take a look at the morning papers. the "wall street journal" has a new sleep study linking poor

sleeping habits to obesity and diabetes. it's often a sign of type ii diabetes. the national sleep foundation finds that most adults need between seven to nine hours of sleep. tonight, which willie's a lot like us, we get somewhere between one and three. >> i was going to say. i was going to say, that's at least twice of what we get, right, joe? >> twice, yeah. >> parade of papers, the seattle times, pizza hut has decided to stop promoting their sausage or pepperoni publicity stunt, encouraging pizza lovers to pose that question to presidential candidates at tonight's town hall debate. after media backlash, the popular pizza chain has moved the promotion online, a pie a week for 30 years or the cash equivalent if someone is brave enough to ask the question tonight at the town hall meeting. >> isn't that wouldn't be stupid enough, not brave enough.

>> i don't think candy's going to let that one through. the boston globe -- i'd ask the question for pizza for life. the boston globe says over the last three months, elizabeth warren raised more than $12 million in her bid for the u.s. senate in massachusetts. i'm just laughing because i actually lost my cue. i was thinking about all that pizza. elizabeth warren has outraged her opponent, scott brown. brown holds the advantage of cash on hand with more than $10 million to spend the final stretch of the campaign. which has become one of the most expensive races in the history of u.s. politics. and willie, also one of the most fascinating. i don't think anybody knows how that one's going to end up. >> where are we right now? what's the spread, would you say, mike barnicle in massachusetts? >> there are various polls. it's pretty even. within the margin of error on most polls. three to five points for either candidate. if the president of the united states runs up a margin of more

than 20%, elizabeth warren ought to win that. mr. jim vandehei, good morning. >> good morning. >> among many other things at politico.com this morning, you guys are looking at some of the president's unmet campaign promises from 2008 as president. we'll start you off by cutting the deficit in half. how did he do? >> no doubt, that's going to be a big topic in the debate tonight. he's most vulnerable on the deficit where he promised to cut it in half and, in fact, we've had trillion dollar deficits each and every year of his presidency. he'll say, oh, i had to do it, i inherited bad circumstances, but i think mitt romney's going to go at him hard with a lot of that has to do with choices the president made, the size and st structure of the stimulus, the health care bill. bob woodward's book shows he had an opportunity to put together a deal that would slice the deficit and backed away at the last second on that deal. so he's vulnerable there. i think he's also very

vulnerable on immigration reform having promised to tackle that right away. if you rewind, remember when the president did have total control of washington, the house, the senate, the white house, they did not do immigration reform. there's no doubt he had the authority at the time to get it done ahead he wanted to do it. >> what i can guarantee is we'll have in the first year an immigration bill. i strongly support and i'm promoting. what about reining in home foreclosures? this was a big one when he was sworn into office. he talked about keeping between 7 million and 9 million families restructuring, keeping them in their homes or refinancing their mortgages. >> fell far short, obviously, on delivering on that. and specifically when it came to preventing those foreclosures in the beginning, that's where the economist who tends to be favorable to president obama is critical of him. so there could have been more that the government did early on to prevent those foreclosures so you didn't have this foreclosure crisis, particularly in places

in nevada or florida where it's been a tough drag on the economy and a big reason that it's taking so long for the economy to recover. so i think it's another area where he'll likely get hit by mitt romney in the debate tonight. and i think that's what the debate's going to be about from the mitt romney perspective. listen, you made a lot of promises, you promised to change washington, you promised to change these policies, that didn't happen, we need someone else who can deliver. >> and also, what are you going to do over the next four years if you're elected? read more of these on politico.com, five unmet obama campaign goals. jim vandehei, thanks, jim. >> thank you. monday and tuesday we'll be down in florida for special coverage of that final presidential debate. the debate's on monday night, we'll be there monday and tuesday. if you're in the boca area, come see the show at racks downtown eatery and tavern at mizner park beginning at 5:30 a.m. eastern time. >> it's a great spot, right? >> good spot. coming up next on "morning

joe," down by 24 points to the chargers at halftime, peyton manning somehow, some way -- >> incredible. >> leads them back. we've got surprises for you when we come back. [ woman ] ring. ring. progresso. in what world do potatoes, bacon and cheese add up to 100 calories? your world. ♪

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all right. time for a little sports at 6:37 in the morning. peyton manning had a rough outing the last time he was on monday night football. he threw three first-quarter interceptions against the falcons. man, the first half, it was ugly. the chargers jumped out to a 24-0 halftime lead on plays like this. a mix-up between manning and his receiver, strolling his way into the end zone. 80 yards for the touchdown, put the chargers up 17-0. they were up 24-0 at halftime, looking like a route at home. but second half, broncos kind of climbed back into this one. after one manning touchdown, the chargers get the ball back, but not for long. tony carter scoops it up. he goes untouched, 65 yards for the touchdown, and it's 24-14 with just under five minutes left in the third. fourth quarter now, broncos within three points, at this point, peyton manning going to

chuck one up for brandon stokely. i don't know, a, how he caught it, b, how he got his feet down, but he did both. that is a touchdown. air-tight defense, but great throw and catch. manning to stokely. nine minutes left, chargers try to answer, but rivers, a lazy out pattern picked off by chris harris, he walks into the end zone, the broncos come all the way back to win 35-24, that's 35 unanswered points in the second half after trailing 24-0 at the halftime. it's the biggest comeback in the history of monday night football. and the second biggest overall in the super bowl era. rivers helped the broncos, manning had three touchdowns in the second half. both teams now 3-3 and tied for first place in the weak afc west. >> can we talk about the giants now? >> we may. the nlcs. the st. louis cardinals jumped out to a lead after taking game one in san francisco, game two

last night, and a scary moment here early on. giants try to turn to matt holiday, the hard slide takes out marco. unclear how they admitted after the game, he did slide late. some of the giants said it was dirty and got him fired up. >> past the bag. >> how did he get the throw? >> giants up a run with the bases loaded. holliday threw it, bases clear and the giants take a 5-1 lead. giants starter throwing a gem, for the strikeout, he becomes the first giants starter to get through six innings this post season. giants win in a route 7-1, series tied one game a piece. >> boom. >> they head to st. louis tomorrow for game three. >> all right. let me ask, willie. willie and mike, that seems like such a cheap, cheap slide at

second base. why? why would he do that? >> well -- >> breaking it up. >> break up the double play, obviously. but he did slide late, did slide around the bag. >> after the bag. >> i was amazed he got the throw off and stayed in the game and got a hit. his next time at bat. >> i mean, look at this -- >> past the bag. >> i know. >> we've all played baseball and we've all either tried to break up a double play or -- but yeah, it was -- >> cheap shot. >> i can't believe you'd do that in the playoffs. >> at vanderbilt, they call that a geist. >> karma payback. >> why can't they get guys -- >> they used to. >> they did have. >> thank you, theo. >> so tonight, we move to the alcs, yankees down two games to none and might get uglier from here because they haven't even faced justin verlander tonight.

2-0, .56 e.r.a. in the playoff, struck out 22 hitters and 16 innings of work, allowed seven hits. on the other side, yankees, cannot hit. a-rod, swisher, cano, and granderson hitting a combined .112. they get verlander at 8:00 p.m. eastern time, could be night-nighttime for the yankees. >> barnicle would be better. >> willie, i remember 1996 the atlanta braves go up 2-0 against the yankees and i'm flying through atlanta and i'm the big braves fan and i'm reading that, you know, comparison of these braves who won the world series the year before to the '27 yankees, the yankees swept them four games in a row. >> yep. >> you know those bats that are cold just like we're talking about the president, they can go hot one night. it takes one clutch hit, and that thing can turn around pretty darn quickly.

>> you have to believe they're going to start hitting at some point. it might be too late. >> you know, dream, dream, dream. >> it's a-rod you're talking about. >> if only we could hang a slider, we could come back on that. it ain't over. it ain't over. coming up next, behind the scenes of the campaign trail with paul ryan. mark joins us next to explain why he says paul ryan can't lose. [ lane ] your anti-wrinkle cream is gone...

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with us now from washington, d.c., chief national correspondent for the "new york times" magazine.

mark speaks in the upcoming issue "paul ryan can't lose." he writes in part, ryan had worn the mantle of serious man for some time in washington. everyone around ryan was interested in conveying the idea that he is, indeed, a detail-obsessed man of great substance. ryan is gifted at shrouding a cut-throat ambition in a sheepish nonchalant. it is a key political skill. trying is key to impress without looking like you're trying. and one that's eluded many politicians past and present, he's also deft at conveying precision and specificity without being the least bit precise or specific. he has honed his image carefully and promotes it relentlessly on the stump. mark, how are you doing today, buddy? >> hi, joe, good to see you. >> they do pay you more than a quarter a year at the times, don't they? >> occasionally. i haven't seen my paycheck recently. >> yeah. for good reason.

for good reason. listen, paul ryan, sounds like a fascinating piece. he is one of these guys that for years everybody sort of said he's very serious, very this, very that, and he's also been conveyed as the one guy -- and i've said it myself here on this show when he was selected. the one guy that is willing to tell the truth about the budget deficit. but you say that in this campaign, that may be more style than substance. explain. >> well, look, he has -- like you said, had a long held reputation and well-earned reputation as a detailed guy. and unfortunately, one of the casualties of a campaign and the sound bite obsession of a campaign is that you lose the opportunity to really do that and to really go into that. and you sort of have to shroud this, not really shroud it, but present it in a way that's formatted for the sort of day-to-day sound bite, you know, rhythm of a campaign. so i think it's been hard to do. i think it's been more of a sense that this is someone who

can do it rather than someone who can or is doing it in the day-to-day. >> he's not been on the ticket that long. but have we seen of your observation any evolution or growth in paul ryan as a national candidate? >> i think so. i mean, i think he really was pretty much ready fairly early on. he's been a national figure for a few years now. i think he's been used to doing town meetings in a national forum and doing a lot of national tv interviews. it's not like a sarah palin where he sort of zero to 70 in two seconds. so, i think, though, that obviously it's a -- it's an environment that's just fraught with peril. and you can mess up very, very easily. i don't think he has made any mistakes in any sort of game-changing way. and i think he has gotten better over time and i think he's been comfortable on the trail. >> hey, mark, it's heilemann here. thank you for putting the two words together in the last statement. >> i didn't mean to.

>> it was a big mistake. the title of your piece is "paul ryan can't lose." what's the argument for how this is a no-lose proposition for paul ryan? >> okay. well, speaking purely literally, obviously he can lose the romney/ryan ticket. >> thank you for that. >> right. a lot of people made the point to me if romney loses, the republican party is going to move on pretty quickly and paul ryan is going to also. he's still going to be in congress, he's going to still have a very powerful seat in congress and naturally people are going to be looking to him almost immediately as someone for 2016. and, again, i mean, the only way you can mess that up in a campaign like this is to be disloyal, which he hasn't been, or to mess up in any serious way, which he hasn't. so i think clearly he was someone that a lot of people were encouraging to run before. and i think he's only enhanced his stature within the party and within the conservative movement

this time around. and i don't think, there was a school of thought a few weeks ago that he would have to distance himself a little bit from romney. i don't see that, i don't think anyone would ever expect him to. and expect that would be the job of a running mate. >> yeah, and that, of course, all changed after the first debate. and we talked, john heilemann and i were talking about urban legend. this vice presidential debate, that was really his one great challenge in this campaign if hep wanted to remain viable till 2016. at least in republican circles where it matters the most, he's going to be remembered as joe biden's straight guy, the further we get away from the debate, the more it's going to take on the flavor and the flair of the snl skit, joe biden, smirking, crazy, out of control, it'll be more of a jason sudekis moment than a joe biden moment. and he seemed to pass that test pretty darn well. if he does pass the test in

2016, you're writing in the magazine this week about bill and hill forever. and you say the democrats are going to hand it to hillary on a silver platter. >> well, i think there's just -- she's -- you know, she and her husband are the two most popular people in the democratic party right now. she came within a hair of winning the nomination in 2008 even people for president obama look to her with great respect. she ran, and in the end she emerged as a great candidate. she's been a really credible secretary of state. i think, you know, having made that choice, the democratic base having made the tough choice between one historic possibility, the first afric african-american democratic nominee and the first woman, they're ready for a woman now. and hillary clinton, it's her last chance. if she wants it. and most people say two things. one, she's really serious about not making a decision about it now, but two, she's going to have to decide relatively soon because everyone else in the party kind of has to hang fire until she decides. everyone's frozen in place.

when she looks at six months from now and she's 50 points ahead of every other democrat and the party's begging for her to run, it's going to be hard to say now and she'll more or less get the nomination by acclamation. >> mark, i wanted to ask you, if, in fact, ryan can't lose, he'll be bucking a historical trend. because the last vice president who really sort of had a second act was george h.w. bush. used to be getting on the ticket was your ticket to pressing forward. dan quayle, jack kempf, sarah palin, it's not been a charmed record in recent years. >> right. >> what makes ryan different? >> well, first of all, i mean, if you look at jack, he was sort of at the end of his career, he ran for president twice. and someone like sarah palin, you know, she didn't have a particularly smooth performance as running mate. and she obviously did some

damage to herself in that race and subsequent to that in alaska when she resigned and some other things. i think ryan, people would say has conducted himself in a way that would certainly not be disqualifying by any stretch. and, again, i think he thought and i think most people thought he was a few years away. i think romney's pick of him was a big surprise. he's 42 years old, even if he doesn't run in 2016, he could run in 2020 and still be, what, 50 years old or something. again, between his youth, between his conservative reden s credentials and performance on this campaign, i think he's insulated from any of the other historic precedent. >> all right, mark, thank you so much. we always love having you with us. >> thanks, guys. >> your piece will be in the upcoming "new york times" sunday magazine. and we're going to bring in reince priebus.

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look at this. that's a wonderful shot of sam stein with his lovely sister joining him today. what's your sister's name? allison, welcome, you want to be on the show? >> i'd love to. >> you'd be better than sam.

>> what time is your first class today? >> 8:00? >> sam's got socks on today. >> and david gregory next. [ female announcer ] want to spend less and retire with more? at e-trade, our free online tools and retirement specialists can help you build a personalized plan and execute it with a wide range of low cost investments. get a great plan and low cost investments at e-trade.

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paul ryan's smirk. take a look. >> i would like to begin with vice president biden. congressman, ryan? >> this concludes the vice presidential debate. >> oh, my gosh. welcome back to "morning joe." as you take a look at washington. the sun about to rise. we've got mike barnicle with us. mike, haleprin, john heilemann, jon meacham all with us in new york. and joining the table political editor and white house correspondent for the "huffington post" sam stein. also david gregory. and david, we've been talking since the first hour and i'm sure you know this because you watch "morning joe" while you're still in bed and you watch "morning joe" while you're

shaving and you get in the car and you've got that tv screen right in front of your steering wheel and we love that. >> right there. >> hey, sirius xm, joe. >> exactly. exactly. >> no doubt. >> but you know, david, we've been talking about this gallup poll that shows this growing momentum for mitt romney in the key battleground states including florida, ohio, virginia. and it actually has mitt romney pulling ahead by four points among likely voters 50% to 46%. and the bigger take away talking about this past hour has also been that he's polled even when it comes to female voters in swing states. and i urged caution. and a lot of us urged caution. but, you know, mark haleprin has a new map out that's pretty fascinating about where this race may go. jon meacham, by the way, threw in a very helpful 1914 reference to a naval campaign. >> amphibious.

>> i'm setting this all up to say it's too early. and you know you want to look for trends. as we were talking over the past hour, quinnipiac we leased a new poll out of the state of pennsylvania which i've always called fool's good for the republican party. but a new poll just out shows mitt romney now closing the gap in pennsylvania. he has narrowed the president's 12-point lead last month to just four points today in pennsylvania. it's a 50% to 46% race. of course, this could all change after tonight's debate, david, but right now at 7:05 a.m. on the east coast, judging by what haleprin's hearing, the polls we're seeing, the new polls out, something is happening out there in the swing states, a pretty substantial move to mitt romney. >> and based on the people i'm talking to in the obama campaign, there's a recognition here that one of the chief strategies of the campaign, to

disqualify mitt romn as an alternative is starting to break down. and it was the fundamental flaw of that first debate that they let romney back in, they gave him an opportunity to get a second look, and romney's doing a lot with that second look and the polling bears this out. that he's running as a businessman. somebody with a strong business record who can get things done. showing more of a pragmatic side. and so you see this tightening. i think it's incumbent then on the president tonight to do more than try to poke holes in romney's argument. he has got to provide more of an affirmative vision and affirmative agenda for a second term. if he is losing or at least losing ground on this idea that, hey, you can't trust this alternative, this guy either has no core or is an extremist depending upon which argument is at the moment. i think that's the big challenge going into tonight, joe. >> i think so. and mark haleprin, i always say this when i was a politician. polls may be unreliable, maybe some polls less reliable than

others, but i always told everybody, you look at the trend lines, where were we last month? where were we two weeks ago? where are we now? and you were taking us through some of these swing states. here's a state in pennsylvania that mitt romney was saying has a shot of winning over the past several weeks. i didn't believe him. i don't think many people believe he had a shot. but he's narrowing it to 4 percentage points according to this new poll. look at all the trend lines in these battleground states. i read your post last night. maybe senior democrats have a reason to start being concerned leading up to this debate. >> well, and the change in pennsylvania is without spending a dollar. it's not like they've made an effort there on television or with a lot of campaigning. i think david hit on exactly what the pressure is on the president tonight. a lot of focus on being more aggressive about governor romney, but i think he needs to lay out a vision about what it'd do in a second term, and i think that we've never seen barack obama as a general election candidate have to fight to win. and right now he has to do it. he coasted in the senate

campaign. he coasted pretty much against senator mccain. right now, i think he's the favorite, but he must fight to win this, not just in the debate tonight, but in general over the next few weeks. maybe he can do it, but we've never seen him do it before. >> do you get the impression, sam stein, one of the things the president has to do tonight from speaking with his people, he has to show three things, strength, passion, and belief in his administration's ability in going forward and tell the american people where he's going to take us? >> yeah, one of the take aways i got from talking to a bunch of democrats after the first debate was, if he's going to lack so much passion, then what's the point? if he's not going to fight for his own presidency, why should we be asked to fight for him? i think that's a big component. i think the second component is he didn't really lay out any affirmative agenda for four years. it's there. i know it's not in the most compelling agenda, but it involves manufacturing, infrastructure, investment in clean energy, all those things, all those components which were

part of it just completely absent from the debate. and obviously thirdly was calling out romney in some respects as a flip-flopper or a conservative in sheep's clothing. those are the components. i think if you talk to the obama people, they look at the map, recognize the momentum has shifted to romney. their big spin is, listen, if it comes down to it, there are three states that matter to us. we can hold ohio, the polls are still better there than other states. if we can hold wisconsin and there's traditionally democratic state and we can either get nevada or iowa, we win. that's it, we win. and almost like a race against the clock now. can they hold on to these things before romney overtakes them? >> david, i wanted to ask you, take us back to the white house and the dynamic between the first bush/kerry debate and the second. was there any lesson there? >> well, i think there was a recognition they lost that first debate.

there was recovery, but i don't think that was bush's shining moment. i think that 2004 turned on the issue of terrorism, particularly that bin laden tape, and i think the perception that the chief problem that the country faced that was another attack and the ongoing threat from terrorists was something that more or less the administration had solved. again the perception, i'm not saying what the reality was, but that was the political perception and punctuated by that bin laden tape. one other comment about going to sam's point. there is certainly a recognition, i think, both campaigns that the obama team can grind this out, demographically. and in certain states, but i talked to a really smart voter on a plane to florida, he happened to be a voter from new hampshire yesterday, and he made the point that we are locked in this political gladiator game in this country. and we haven't had a lot of discussion about the fiscal cliff in these debates. and these revenue questions that have to be resolved. but there is this fundamental feeling that washington is not doing its job.

and that our legislators are not doing their job. the president's not doing his job to bridge these divisions. i don't think we've heard enough about what is the path forward to solving some of these fights? so there's the grind it out strategy, but then there's the bigger point about making washington work better. i just think both sides are going to really lose people if they don't take these final weeks to address that fundamental problem. >> and, you know, to turn on the reagan question in 1980, are you better off than you were four years ago, i think americans are still grappling with that, that the answer to that question. i think, though, the question that's being asked now, john heilemann, more than any other is what's the next four years going to look like? the uncertainty economically surrounds us all. are we going to be japan? are we going to have the lost decade? are the chinese overtaking us? what's the debt cliff going to look like two, three months from

now? is the dollar going to be trash? are we going to look like california? are we going to look like greece? there are so many questions in 2012 that we didn't have in 1980. we're in a recession in 1980, things were bleak, but the gun wasn't to our head like it is economically right now. and when that question is not being answered by the president of the united states, a lot of people go, well, i guess i'll try the other guy. >> well, the points we made a couple times this morning that romney did a lot of -- obama allowed romney to and he did a lot to make himself a more acceptable alternative in that first debate. one of the things the president's tale, in the earlier construct of this race, we had the romney team wanting this to be a referendum on the last four years. part of the thing about a choice

election, you're saying don't just judge me on the last four years, judge me on the future. competing values, competing visions, policies for the next four years. i've always thought one of the weaknesses with obama is if you're going to make that argument, it's incumbent on you to sketch out a future. if you're going to say judge us on what we'll do for the country in the next four years, you've got to kind of say what your view is. they've done a good job of saying romney will drive us back into the ditch, but in absence of explaining why it is that barack obama has not been able to fix washington as david gregory said. how it is if he couldn't make republicans and democrats to get along. there's a lot of blame for republicans, for sure, but barack obama's campaign promise, i will end the bitter polarization. so mitt romney's in a position to say why on earth should any american think the next four years would be different than the last four years in this crucial respect? and obama must address that in addition to policies.

>> it's ironic too, now that obama almost wants to have a conversation about the last four years and say, listen, bin laden -- >> thank you, bill clinton. >> the unemployment numbers are going down. he's looking backwards now. >> yes, he is. is. >> and again, the economic problems we're facing right now, david gregory. i remember what it was like being the son of a dad who had been laid off and was looking for work for 18 months. i remember in '71 and '72, the protests in the street over vietnam, the turmoil going on. the kind of life and the economy that my dad was going to get back to work because the economy was doing better. the "usa today" poll that was out was accompanied by an article about working class

women who are actually breaking to mitt romney right now. and we sit here in the press and obsess over, you know, all of these social issues. are women going to be breaking against, you know, romney because of this or that? you know what? at the end of the day, it does come down to what are you going to do over the next four years? and for a lot of voters, it has nothing to do with simpson and bowles or deficit commissions. it's who they feel their gut level's going to get them back to work. >> who is really going to focus on it, joe? who is making it their business every day to get up and obsess about how we get a better economic recovery? and how does government do its best job? and how does government help the private sector do its best job? and how is everybody in this together working together? i don't know that in either case, in either campaign there's something tangible you can hold on to that's a real job creator. i know that everybody's got their various points, but i think your point is what people are still looking for. which is, you know, even if there's a greater sense of

optimism that things are going in the right direction, it still seems really slow, largely jobless. what if you've been out of work so long you're not even counted. the unemployment rate can go up if you feel more optimistic and get back into the workforce and start looking. people do have a sense of i know the economy can't get much better when we've got such high debt and everybody's sitting on the sidelines and washington can't get its act together and nobody can agree on whether we raise taxes at all, raise any revenue, or what we cut. it's just a complete mess. the sense that we're standing still, i think is a real political death trap for both parties. >> well, and we're standing still. and mike barnicle, though, you have a presidential campaign. isn't that at the end of the day whether you're going to hire or fire the guy? i mean, you've got president obama and mitt romney both vague on what they're going to do over the next four years. but when people go into the voting booth, aren't they in their gut deciding do i re-hire

this guy? or do i fire him? >> absolutely. these three debates that we're watching and we've seen one, we have two more to go, one tonight. the job applications. and the first job application, one of the applicants appeared not to really care as much about getting the job as the other applicant did. that would be romney versus the president of the united states. i could almost guarantee you just on instinct that if you go to columbus, ohio, or outside of cleveland, ohio, and three weeks ago you asked a series of ten people give me a description of mitt romney they'd say rich guy three weeks ago. and if you go there today and say give me a description of mitt romney, they'd say, huh, might be president. that's a huge sea change in this country in terms of job -- in terms of people who are going to vote for the guy for the job. >> and rhetorically and stylistically, you had mitt romney on his toes in that

debate. i think the president's going to do very well stylistically tonight, jon meacham. the question is whether that's going to be enough stylistically whether people are really going to be saying what are the specifics? what are you going to do different over the next four years you didn't do over the last four years? and how does that change the dynamics of the race? >> yeah. and it's a trickier format than the one-on-one in denver because you have the audience asking the -- the town hall asking the questions gets a little more complicated to draw a sharper distinction. you can appear more empathetic, you can make more of an impression on that group. but in terms of the -- it's not as gladitorial as it was two weeks ago, and that could break either way. but it will be a slightly different dynamic. >> no doubt about it. david gregory, thank you for being with us. boy, tonight, the stakes couldn't be much higher, could they? >> they're big. and i hope there's plenty of

follow-up tonight. could you imagine both presidential campaigns not wanting follow-up questions? they can't take tough follow-up questions? i think the american people expect more. >> i think so too. all right. hey, thanks a lot, david. we really appreciate you being with us. coming up next, we've got long suffering auburn fan and senior adviser to the obama campaign, robert gibbs with us. he joins us onset along with nbc political director chuck todd. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. welcome aboard! [ chuckles ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪

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hey, welcome back to "morning joe." with us now onset, we've got the

former white house press secretary robert gibbs. he is, of course, the fifth brother gibb. the chief white house correspondent, political director, and host of "the daily rundown," chuck todd. the important first question, willie geist. this is what all the kids want to know the answer to. the morning before i think perhaps the biggest presidential debate at least since 1980, maybe you've got to go back to the lincoln/douglas debates, but only asking one question, what is the spread of the vandy auburn game? >> vanderbilt university is a seven-point favorite against the auburn tigers on saturday. a seven-point favorite against a team that won the national championship two years ago. >> i'm having audio -- can somebody -- i can't hear joe or willie. >> which is strange. >> we're 2 feet apart.

>> willie's right there. so that's kind of weird. >> joe, is that you? are you out there? >> yeah, i am out here, rob. >> joe. >> pulling a schwarzenegger. >> he is pulling a schwarzenegger. >> it's weird i can answer most of your questions but i can't quite hear what you're saying. >> willie, i'll direct this to you. i was treated to a great time this weekend at ole miss in the grove. >> yeah. >> so many -- met so many great friends. and willie, they played a pretty good football game down there at ole miss this weekend. they actually picked auburn as their homecoming. as their homecoming game. >> can i get a new -- >> one from 2010? >> cam newton call right now, call me now. >> exactly. exactly. really quickly, have you ever been to the homecoming, been to the grove?

>> i have. might be the best place to pregame in all of college football. >> have you ever been to ole miss before? >> just for the debate four years ago, i've never seen a football game there. i'd love to go there. i know it's a magical place. >> we actually planned this, we don't really have time to plan much, but i always wanted to go to ole miss and it was just remarkable. if you love football, you will love a football game at the grove. >> it's weird, this thing started working again. >> pretty good. >> this is great. i'm ready to go. did you say anything before that? to know about before to set this? >> no, nothing at all. well, actually, since you can hear me now, i'm going to repeat everything i said. so willie, what's the line? robert, it's got to be interesting for you especially to hear all the gloom and doom talk, to hear about how poorly the president did in the first debate. and i think the president will admit he did poorly in the first

debate. but to hear the sky is falling, that's what you heard throughout the fall of 2007. he was terrible at debates, he wasn't punching back hard enough, he wasn't tough enough to be president of the united states and somehow he managed to become president of the united states. >> president of the united states. >> is history going to repeat itself again tonight? >> look, i think you're going to see an exceptionally strong debate performance from the president. he'll be energetic. we'll talk about as you all have been talking about on the set. you know, not just the last four years, but what the agenda is for the future and how we continue to move our country and economy forward, strengthening it for the middle class. i think that's what you'll hear tonight from the president. >> hey, chuck, mark haleprin had a map out this morning that showed a path if mitt romney can somehow pick off ohio to get to 270. we'll talk about robert as if he's not here. what are the three states if you were robert gibbs and the campaign you'd be most concerned

about. >> first of all, robert, i'm impressed with debate expectations. now it's not just strong, exceptionally strong. >> i think he'll be good tonight. >> that is chris christie-like in your promise of a -- are you promising a narrative change? >> i'm walking away. look, i will say this, i've watched the sort of lead-in. i'm used to cable gloom. but, you know, i -- >> what about auburn gloom? >> i would say the coffee is dark, but i don't think the overall mood is quite as bleak. we've been through a lot of these times in campaigns. i've listened to this sort of alan keys and john mccain which pretends we were handed the nomination. >> i said general election. >> i know that. but let's not suggest that a year and a half primary doesn't test as a character of a campaign. >> but willie, to answer your question, and i would assume,

robert, you agree with this, which is for me the fire wall for them is the western states. ohio, wisconsin, iowa, is 271. you give those three to obama, it's 271. that's the fire wall. so i don't know if ohio's in play or not. the romney campaign's not sure if they can get to 15 or not. what did they choose to put it? they put it in iowa. they need to break obama's strangle hold on one of those three states. during this bump, post debate bump, the movement, romney's arguably taken the lead or pulled lead in florida, colorado, virginia. the three states he's picked up ground, but he hasn't overtaken the president in that sort of midwest. that's the firewall. >> can't they swap iowa for nevada? >> you could swap some things and there is an argument -- yes, you can swap iowa for nevada. demographically impossible for a

republican to win nevada anymore. and this is the guy that was the only one that showed harry reid winning in 2010 when the rest of us wrote harry reid off. >> well, similar points on sort of where the registered votes are and the demographics. >> you can swap those two exactly the same amount and six for six. but that is the strangle hold somewhere. and the race to me doesn't fundamentally shift until you see romney taking the lead or polling even in those three states. >> we've got a couple polls, robert, we've been focusing on this morning that just came out. of course, yesterday, with abc news/"washington post" poll showed the president breaking 50%. that was great news for the president. today we're talking about swing state polls coming out that show the president behind by four in the 12 battleground states. mitt romney making some gains

with women, which i think most polls have shown he's been making gains with women. a new poll out just last hour shows actually in pennsylvania, which really surprises me that the president now only ahead of mitt romney by four. so there are obviously trend lines in the battleground states. this is tightening up, but that doesn't really surprise you, does it? you expected this all along, right? >> absolutely we expected a tightening race. look, we have 53% of the vote four years ago. so obviously everyone expected this to be an extraordinarily tight race 3 1/2 weeks out. i should point out about the gallup poll you mentioned. we put out a memo on this yesterday. i do not think any poll in the last two weeks has shown what the gallup poll did in terms of a tie among female voters. you know, cnn did an ohio poll late last week where we were leading among women in ohio by 22 points.

i do not think that the gallup survey that shows a tie among female voters is what's going on in the country because we've not seen it replicated in any other either battleground state or national poll. >> they say two things about the president to respond to what you said before. he's skinny, but he's tough as he said and nobody's made any money betting against him. i just want to be clear. general elections are different than primaries and he's never had to do it. i want to ask you about the politics of libya and what secretary clinton said last night. just about the politics, leaving mind the substantive investigation. are you all in a good place, a fine and vulnerable place? and what are the implications of what secretary clinton said for the campaign? >> look, i've got to tell you, it's hard to do the politics of libya because i want to make sure that we understand and i say very clearly that this really shouldn't be something

that as ambassador stevens said becomes a political issue. how this came about, and anyone we send to do the diplomatic business of this country is protected. i think what secretary clinton said last night was the state department is the one that receives and looks through security requests for missions in our consulates around the world. she also said, we have to remain diplomatically engaged and keep our people safe and ought not play politics with this. and i think if you look at what mitt romney has done since the moment this thing happened is play politics with it. and go back to that 47% tape, you know, he said he was looking for a foreign crisis to try to exploit during this campaign. it's not a surprise he ran out there quickly without knowing the facts and his own party said that he was not acting as a commander in chief would act. but i think that other things that clinton, secretary clinton and others at the state

department have said is that we were telling the american people exactly what the intelligence assessments were at the time in which we were telling them that. obviously every step along the way, every day you learn more about what was happening, you peel back the layers of intelligence without getting too detailed. and you learn more about both the lead-up and the exit to that event. >> hey, chuck todd, let's talk about female voters. robert was just talking about a 22-point lead the president had in ohio. but there actually was a pew poll out this past week that showed mitt romney and barack obama tied with female voters at 47%. mitt romney making huge gains since september over the past month. where is the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" gap? >> we still had it right at nine, ten points, right on the

cusp of double digits. we'll be coming out at the end of this week or early next week. but one thing about this gender issue, joe, in talking to both campaigns, they acknowledge romney made progress among women on certain questions. favorability questions, on handling of the economy. what i've had sort of the crucial swing woman vote, suburban women did not move much in the ballot tests. this was sort of what -- what the obama folks took some comfort in and what the romney folks looked at as saying, hey, this is the next step. and that's what you have to look at tonight. if mitt romney's going to become president of the united states, he has to peel suburban women away from the president. and this is his best opportunity to blow up the stereotype that he is the out of touch rich guy when he's interacting when they're asking questions. that's what they both see as the

opportunity and as this is where the campaign -- and it's suburban women. >> robert, what should voters be looking for tonight from the president in the debate? >> well, as chuck mentioned, you've got an interesting inner play because these are not questions that come from a journalist moderator, they're going to come from and through the voice and the experience of un undedecided voters. i think the president will do this, which is really try to seek out and connect with the story they're telling and tell us what it is we've done and what we want to do that will discuss the cares they have in this race. i think that's a huge part of business you have to do tonight because it's a much different format. i also don't doubt there will be moments throughout the debate where the choice will be evident. and, you know, the president will look to make that choice

apparent to undecided voters. and look, you guys have talked about it a lot this morning. how are we going to continue to rebuild this economy? and are we going to do it the way mitt romney wants to do it? which is a huge top-down tax cut in hopes that it like we tried during the bush years trickles down and somehow makes the economy grow. the problem is, we've tried that before and it didn't work. what we need to do is try to build this economy, continue to build this economy from the middle out, making important investments, bringing manufacturing back from overseas, building stuff and then selling it also overseas. improving our educational system. a whole host of important investments that we have to make and that we need to do to continue to build this economy in a stronger way. >> robert, real quick, what will be in a nutshell the president's

answer to an undecided voter who said i voted for you in 2008 because i believed it when you said you could fix the economy, change the tone of washington, i've given you four years to do it, it hasn't happened for me, it hasn't happened quickly enough. why should i stay with you for four years? >> the president will say, look what we were, look what we walked into, 800,000 jobs a month and now we've seen 31 consecutive months of job growth. foreclosures at a five-year low, unemployment at a four-year low. look, we -- we inherited a mess in a hole that we were in as that voter knows as well as anybody was extraordinarily deep. and it's taken us a while to climb out of that hole. now what we need to do is continue to build forward. and i think you'll hear the president go into discussing many of the things i just talked about. including investing in our domestic energy, including clean energy to create jobs. a whole host of things that we can and should do.

some of which we should couldn't to do that has moved us to where we've been to where we are now. we're not where we all want to be. that's going to take some time. but the path we've been on is no doubt better than where we started. >> it's going to be a big night. a lot of people glued to the tv. >> joe? >> hey, robert, can you hear me? robert? hello? >> joe, joe? call in, joe. >> you guys settle this offline. >> we're going to be number one again. >> thanks so much. stay with us, if you can. steve schmidt going to join the conversation. we'll be right back. when you take a closer look... ...at the best schools in the world...

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as we talk about tonight's debate, we look ahead to next week's. monday and tuesday, we will be down to boca way too early and "morning joe." the debate is on monday, we'll be there monday and tuesday, beginning at 5:30 a.m. stop by racks downtown eatery and tavern in boca. >> we're going to that one. >> if it's in florida, we go.

>> you didn't pick the mountain time zone, you didn't pick centre college. >> we feel like florida's a pivotal state in this election. >> and joe's out scouting the burbank debate. >> he's making sure everything's good out there. i think they've got it covered. >> the boca breeze, baby. >> up next, reince priebus. looking for a better place to put your cash? here's one you may not have thought of -- fidelity.

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seeing in all three of the states. and obviously it's all coming down to those three states and then one more if you adhere to the three, two, one strategy. we feel good about our ground game there which is what we're focusing in on at the rnc. as far as door-to-door campaign, we're blowing the doors off of where we were in '08. we've done a phenomenal job as a team. between team romney and the republican party and those state parties of getting the job done on the ground. and let me tell you, this isn't something you can fake with, you know, how many calls did you make today? oh, we made 20,000. this is all like voiceover internet phones are tracked on computer dash boards. we know exactly what's going on in those states and it's a very sophisticated absentee ballot program that's going really well. >> i want to jump on that program. it seems you have two different flo philosophies in iowa, for instance. obama campaign making a push on

that, you guys aren't, but florida you are. why are you behind on absentees in iowa but ahead in florida and why aren't you putting extra emphasis in iowa? >> well, i think, it's a difference of how we believe people are voting and what propensity voters have to come to the polls on election day or whether or not they -- >> did some of your base feel uncomfortable voting early? >> in some states it's more prominent than others. when you look at a lot of comparisons, we tend to focus in on voters that aren't, you know, the types of voters that vote in every election. if you guys are voters that vote every single time there's an election, every single time there's a primary, generally we're not keying in on you because if we know you're our voter and know you vote every single election, we're probably not banging your door down. but if you're a voter that votes maybe once every four years or once every two years, now, and

you're likely a gop voter, you're the voter that we're going after in this period of time. whereas you look at barack obama's campaign, they're trying to put all four of you in the basket whereas we're trying to get the low propensity voters in the polls now knowing that our voters that vote every single election are going to be there on election day. that's generally the difference in philosophy. you know, there are things that get microtargeted differently in different states, but that's the overall philosophy on the ground. >> we mourn the loss of life in libya, but based on the facts we know how the administration handled what went on in ben g benghazi, why should that be an issue? >> well, i think it's the 3:00 a.m. call, the buck stops at the white house. that's what hillary clinton said in 2008, saying something differently today. i think it's a matter of leadership, i think it's a

matter of answers. terrible things happen that's not necessarily obviously a reason to, you know -- to say that somebody isn't fit to lead. but i think it's a matter of how do you act once something terrible happens? and how honest are you with the american people? and i just get a people and i ja feeling that this president hasn't been straight with the american people, certainly the white house hasn't been straight with the american people or -- or they have been so sloppy in getting the right answers and communicating the correct anticipates to the american people that it brings the -- brings the question to the table. i mean, has your leadership in the white house produced the kind of results that you promised this country would produce in northern africa and the middle east? and it hasn't. the same is true in the economy, you add the up the pros and the cons, the promise and result you the president, his record doesn't add up for the american

people, that's the problem, his problem in these debates. you have to have a couple good facts on your side if your going to win the case. if you walk in front of the jury close argument, you don't have a few good facts on your side, you're going to have perry mason as your lawyer, you're losing the case. >> putting aside the fact that the president has a few good facts on his side, osama bin laden being one of them, which you would concede, what could the president say on benghazi tonight, is there anything you could say where you would say that is a responsible, reasonable answer and we think he has done a good job on this? >> i don't know. i'm not guy to answer the hypothetical. >> seems the president. >> you will find a point of criticism he has had on this issue. >> he has had a month that will come up with the reasonable answer that will vindicate him hasn't come one one and he is sliding in the polls f you have a reasonable, decent answer for what's going on in libya, we have come forward with t listen,

he will have an opportunity tonight. >> mr. chairman, joe scarborough in l.a. we republicans, we believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, i said that before the debate you sure enough, you look at all the states, you couldn't pay for the type of bump that mitt romney's got. i'm curious if you're seeing this translate over to some of the senate races. what are you looking at right now as far as what the republicans have to do to take the imagine juror knit u.s. senate and also, is the republican party, the national republican party, still staying out of the todd akin race in monsieur rained putting money elsewhere instead, like in states like maine and connecticut? >> sure, i agree with you completely, joe, as the top of the ticket does well, so does most everything else. i will take my own state of wisconsin, for example. the polls were clearly far apart at every level in wisconsin and now, mitt romney and president

obama are neck in neck in wisconsin and so is tommy thompson and tammy baldwin and i think in that particular case, tommy thompson, he is like -- in wisconsin, he is like carly davidson and miller light and tommy thompson, they all kind of go together, he's a brand. >> don't want to use them all at the same time. don't want the miller light and having tommy on your bike. go ahead. >> that's right. >> don't mix them. >> wisconsin, nebraska, north dakota, montana, there are your four states you hold and massachusetts, then we are not even talking about linda mcmahon and george allen in virginia, connie mack in florida. you look at those badle ground states and josh mandell in ohio. obviously, my opinion is in the battleground-tight states, as the the top of the ticket goes, the u.s. senate race will be right there either one or two below or one or two above but not going to sway much from that top of the ticket. in regard to your second question, one of the things that

you need to keep in mind is that the rnc doesn't -- the law doesn't allow us to just take half a million dollars and transfer it into, you know, the account of josh man testimodell. we can't do that i think our legal limit is five grand. we can't turn the dial. we turn out the vote on the ground. our ground game is going tonight most unprecedented ground game that we have ever run at the rnc. if you are getting republican voters or independents that are leaning conservative or republican out to the polls, that helps every republican running in that state no matter whether they are running for u.s. senate or state assembly and obviously doing that all over the country. >> all right, mr. chairman, thank you so much. we appreciate you being with us again. >> all right, god bless ya. >> all right. same with you. and still ahead, we have got former senior strategist for the mccain campaign, steve schmidt. also, got "time" magazine's joe klein talking about some shifting polls and a huge debate tonight. you are watching morning joe,

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chuck, going to see you on "the daily rundown" an hour from now. what do you got today? >> chuck schumer, debate stuff. polls. what it is like to moderate a town hall. >> there you go. >> a little chuck on chuck action.

>> not appropriate for television. >> that was on air. >> get you out of this. when we come back, mark halperin walks us through a scene nair yoent electoral map, giving democrats pause this morning. more "morning joe," when we come back. i'm so g lad you called. thank you. we're not in london, are we? no. why? apparently my debit card is. what? i know. don't worry, we have cancelled your old card. great. thank you. in addition to us monitoring your accounts for unusual activity, you could also set up free account alerts. okay. [ female announcer ] at wells fargo we're working

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a model year newer. learn about it at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility -- what's your policy? good morning, it's 8:00 here on the east coast, 5 a.m. as you wake up out west that is a live look at new york city back with us on 30 rock, mike barnicle, john heilemann, mark halperin and jon meachum. >> tonight, obvious slick, the big debate, going to be a town

hall-style debate and some new polls are out. let's take a look at, again, got a shift, possibly, in the electoral map this morning, a new "usa today"/gallup poll shows shifting for mitt romney in the 12 key battleground states, including those that decide the outcome of the election, ohio, florida and virginia. 50-46 among likely voters. this is obviously a big shift you can only one poll but perhaps the bigger take away from this poll and the others is how the candidates are ranking among likely women voters in battleground states, heard an awful loot about the gender gap since the republican primary season. but among likely female voters in swing states, mitt romney's pulling almost even with the president, 48-49%. among male voters in swing states, romney has an eight-point lead over the president. mark, let's start with you.

you're reporting right now that senior democratic officials are starting to talk to you about real concern about the possibility of a buckeye state slipping away from the obama campaign. of course, you talk to democrats, mark, and they will tell you that they are always overly concerned. the polls still show barack obama well ahead, but they are starting to see florida definitely shift in the polls and now they are afraid this may be happening in ohio. tell us why, as we -- as we are -- we have got a huge debate tonight and also talk about that electoral map. >> look there were two fundamentals keeping the president as the heavy favorite as far as i was concerned to win re-election for a long time, one was the electoral college and the fact he started with a larger electoral college base, governor romney needed to do -- win almost all the toss-ups, second thing add big advantage on was defining mitt romney as an unacceptable choice. that you couldn't vote for mitt romney and romney was going to have a control egg that first debate had such a big impact on

making romney seem like an acceptable choice and it also now has changed the balance in the electoral college. if governor romney is able to went three southern states and the nine tossups, florida, virginia, north carolina and ohio, he is not favored in ohio but now a position to win ohio, you look that the map, all of that red, that gets him to 266. if he can take ohio. and i talked to two democrats yesterday who now think it is possible that a president's position in ohio will erode to such an extent he could lose it, 266 means all governor romney would need to do would win one of those five tossups in yellow and that's huge change. that map gives governor romney like the toral college advantage that the president has long enjoyed. >> be clear if you look at that map, not calling ohio right now for romney. >> not at all. >> just a scenario. >> i was struck yesterday how some democrats now believe what had been a clear advantage in ohio for a long time is now something that is eroded.

>> you're seeing -- joe mentioned how big a debate this is, beyond all the symbolic obama stumbles last night and now needs to come back to change the narrative, we are getting down to where this race is, where we actually all thought it was going to be for the last -- up until the conventions, anybody at this table would have said you wow this is going to be a razor-close election, the ground game's gonna matter, turnout's gonna matter, the map's gonna be tight. for six weeks, we thought, things have fundamentally changed wither back to that original conception again, every little thing matters not a little thing that is going to happen on the debate stage, willie talked this morning how historically, debate audiences rise. i think in this case you the debate audience more likely to

rise even more because of the extent to which people around the country, whether they like president obama, don't like president obama or are undecided what they think, they want to know, can he try this challenge? really, the onus of the challenge is very clearly tonight on the president because of the failure before and because of the erosion that we are talking about now across these battleground states. >> hey, jon meachum, john heilemann yesterday said something that i have also been saying, as we get further away from the first debate, barack obama's failure took on sort of an urban legend, had an urban legend feel to t you know, where the night, going, boy he is just off. you know, i had a guy, a big democrat yesterday come up to me going, i think the president's suffering from depression. really, he just had an off night. reagan had an off night in '84. it changed the dynamic of this race and got everybody the point now where even democrats are starting to see this xlip away.

talk about historically, how quickly that narrative can change in one night. if mitt romney looks awkward tonight, can't interact with the audience well. does what 41 did he leaks at the watch, he looks bored. it can go the other way, if mitt romney has a great night and barack obama looks awkward among these people, you could start to see slipping of support. but i mean tonight, this is one of the biggest debates, given the dynamics of this race probably since 1980. >> it s and it is the second, as opposed to only one. in terms of denver, true that gallipoli might not have seem as bad as first until the numbers kept pouring in. one thing to think about with the president. yes, i suppose romney could come out and reignite the stiff

richie rich thing and say, you know, if you need a job, you can come work in my car elevator, seems pretty unlikely he is going to do that. so, this is the president's to change, i think. and it feels to me as though what -- to go to mark's point, what happened in the mast two weeks is that what political scientists have said, what i think a lot of us have thought, in an environment that is so fundamentally anti-incumbent, by every statistical measure you can the economy, the right track/wrong track, all of that, has been for so long, people have been looking for a reason, a plausible reason, responsible reason, to vote against the president. it wouldn't matter who the president was, to vote against the incumbent. and obama gave that to them in denver. and now, we'll see if -- i don't know how many times people have used this cliche, i will stake out for this morning the first time, can romney begin to close a deal tonight?

>> jon meachum that's a great question. mike barnicle, i'm sorry he stole your gallipoli reference from you, but soldier on and tell us what you're thinking about tonight. and again, these shifting polls. >> well, you know, joe, yesterday was a day when people actually returned my phone calls, so i might bring a little more to the table today. >> about time. >> what was that like? >> it was unusual. it was a busy day for me. >> barnicle is like, what's that sound? it's a ring. phone. >> but one point that john heilman madeet, we are now at a point in this election where we all thought we would be months ago it is going to be very close it is going to be a jump ball election. but anecdotally and from talking to people, you also get the impression when these two guys sit down to write "game change 2", the focus on what happened in denver is going to be enormous i think.

the president of the united states made mitt romney a plausible alternative, made him a plausible alternative. as a result, you now have places like ohio and other states very much in play for governor romney. the president of the united states, again, from speaking to people yesterday and looking at the inturnals of their own polls, appeared not to want the job as much governor romney had polls, appeared not to want the job as much governor romney had. tonight is, as you indicated, as important a debate as we have had in the presidential election since 1980. >> mark, do you agree one thing the president does have going for him tonight is not just expectations that whatever he does, if it's positive at all, it will be a success, but that he does have not only democrats but, let's be honest, many members perhaps in the media poised to say he's back, this is

a redemption storesry? this is a bad first night. he is back. he has done t he is back in command of this race. don't you think that takes hold regardless of what happens tonight? >> the first point, i don't think so i think the expectations somehow is the president is a horrible communicator and horrible in debate yourks think he is ben fitting from low expectation. second pint, putting my finger on the pulse of the media wing of 500 and trying to psych out what you're talking, i don't think so i think the press prefers the narrative. not advocate thug. what i might sense of the zeitgeist. the press prefers the narrative of the president unable to maerts debate. just as much interest in that narrative as much as there is a comeback story, maybe for the third debate. >> isn't everybody going to look sillily, the appreciation the gang of 500, everybody, if the

president just shows up and seems engaged? he hasn't gotten here by accident what is the bill clinton -- what is the bill clinton -- >> turtle on a fence post. >> a turtle on a fence post didn't get there by accident. well, barack obama didn't make history by accident, right? do we think that he is going to be flat two nights in a row or the expectations going to be so low -- >> he won't be flat. i think the biggest challenge for him is describing a second term agenda. i'm almost certain that candy will pick some questions that require the president to talk about what he would do in a second term, why it would be different than the first term and places people didn't like. not a question of being flat, a question of he still hasn't found way to answer that question to the satisfaction of a lot of voters. >> let me just take a mild exception to two things said, o one, i agree about the mark and the case of media. the media wants to write the story about mitt romney not being able to connect to real

people and jon meachum, whether he will be able to a fair intuitive asuching that you mitt romney will not talk about his car elevator, whatever, fair, normal, reasonable assumptions have not applied in the fast mitt romney's ability to communicate with real people very often so the possibility that some voter will ask him a question that flummoxes him, makes him seem out of touch, that he can't reflight a normal, average voter high. we have seen lots of examples the last year and a half. >> i am told in the one of the debate sessions at one point, taking a mock question, said to the voter, excuse me, sir, may i have some grey poupon. >> whether governor romney can close the deal. too early to say that he is still behind. by almost every mat trik metric. yesterday, a "washington post"/abc poll had the president

ahead, having made a gain of one point, according to the national poll, compared to where he was before the debate. >> the most important thing there, too, talk about it, we have been talking about for a year now the president can't get over 50%. so this abc news/"washington post" poll shows he is cracking 50% in a lot of the key areas. again, i think this romney surge is real in florida. i think it's going to be real in north carolina. i think it's real in virginia. i do think that mitt romney's making some great gains. but again, we have got a different poll every day. you luke at abc news/"washington post" poll yesterday, he is over 50% and strong for the first name a long time. we have to wait a couple of dies see how this stuff shakes out, right? >> yes, 51% approval rating one of the number of things that poll yesterday the president could take comfort in. another was the fact the president still, after a year of being behind mitt romney on the question of who would better handle the economy, is now ahead

of mitt romney. and the right track/wrong track number is trending in exactly the right direction for the president. still, more people say wrong track but now in the low 50s as opposed to the mid-60s where it was six months ago. so look, no one's road to -- no one is on the brink of closing this deal now, neither of them. they are both in a very, very tight ray the president still slightly ahead but that's, again, why this debate matters so much because no one is exactly ready to close anything. >> so let's talk about, willy, an issue coming up tonight this benghazi story. you have been talking about it from the very beginning. and the twist and turns and storyline and narrative out of the white house every day. that story just won't go away and took a really dramatic turn yesterday earthquake didn't it? >> here we are, more than a month t happened on september 11th at that consul flat benghazi and now yesterday the secretary of state hillary clinton coming out to take

blame. the obama administration, as you said you joe, understating fire about conflicting statements about what exactly happened last month, now secretary clinton is out, stepping out to take the blame. here is what she said yesterday in peru. >> i take responsibility. i'm in charge of the state department. 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. the president and the vice president certainly wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. they are the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks andment needs and make a considered decision. and what i want to avoid is some kind of political gotcha or blame game going on because that does a disservice to the thousands and thousands of americans, not only in the state department and usaid but the military who serve around the world. >> in a joint statement, senators mccain, graham and

ayotte said "this is a laudable gesture" talking about what secretary clinton did yesterday, "especially went white house is trying to avoid any responsibility whatsoever." erick erickson at redstate.com writing this headline, hillary clinton prepares to see underside of obama bus. meanwhile, the obama administration is reporting that the white house has moved armed drones into position in north africa and put specials on forces on stand by the military weighing how it will react should investigators find a militant group responsible forth death of chris stevens and three other americans, john. >> can i just say, it seems to me that secretary clinton's statement is the first mature, effective thing the administration has said about this and it strikes me the act of someone taking responsibility you as she says, and doing her job. is the president ultimately responsible? yes. as president kennedy said, i'm the ultimate responsible officer of the government but the idea

that that is her being thrown under the bus is, seems to me, wrong. because to me, she looks strong, effective, rational and those are three things we have not seen to describe the reaction of the administration to this story u when we come back, former mccain strategist steve schmidt and political columnist for "time" magazine, joe klein, are here to help us handicap tonight's big debate. tomorrow, looking at the man playing the roam of mitt romney for obama's debate prep, senator john kerry, but first the forecast with bim karens. this tuesday, we are watching a hurricane this one heading for new york america and about to make landfall. it's in mexico, the baja of mexico, a big vacation resort for a lot of friends on the western half of our country and cabo san lucas is going to just get brushed by the storm. looks like this hurricane is going to make landfall in three to six hours from now just north of cabo san lucas. some of that moisture eventually could co-try to move over areas like new next kind texas.

for today, the big story of today, what a mild, warm, beautiful fall day across the country. one storm exiting new england. light rain up there in northern wisconsin, upper peninsula of michigan. the only big storm on the map is moving through the intermountain west, northern rockies getting rain, friends in seattle, portland a chance of showers, too. it is going to be very windy ahead of that storm system in montana and the dakotas. otherwise you what a great tuesday. look at these warm temperatures, mid-60s in the mid-atlantic, the southeast in the 70s, near 80 or above from kansas city to st. louis and very warm for our trends in the desert southwest, los angeles, once again, near 90 today and tomorrow, very similar. southern half of the country, gorgeous weather next two days, but the northern half of the country dealing with storm after storm. los angeles, feels like summertime still. cool down comes your way on thursday. looking at l.a.x. airport. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work.

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i know no debate is ever the same and it's going to be fun to watch, maybe more fun more you than for me. but one thing i know for sure, mitt's prepared. mitt's confident. mitt's got a good presence about him and mitt's running because he believes in america. >> this morning, let me testimony you what i did. i cast my ballot early for

broome! yeah! yes! today! it felt so good. right now, my absentee ballot is on its way to my hometown, chicago, illinois. that means we are one vote closer to reelecting my husband and moving this country forward for four more years. >> welcome back to morning joe. with us now, former mccain senior campaign strategist and msnbc political analyst steve schmidt. and also political columnist for "time" magazine, joe klein. and jon meachum and sam stein also back on set. i just got -- on my iphone, i got a breaking news alert. "new york times" breaking news, vick cram pandit steps down as chief executive of citigroup. michael door bet to take over. we will be talking about that in business before the bell in about 15 minutes.

that is a fascinating shakeup. i didn't hear that was coming. >> your reading that is the firps i heard of t get brian sullivan on in a few minutes, have him give us the how and why on that. >> dig into t hey, joe klein, important question, are you going to see crosby, sometimes & nash when they play at the beacon? >> i like to listen to their album, came out in 1969, spotty, great. i bought that the same time i bought santana's first album. >> they are great. fantastic. >> harmonies hard to replicate on a live stage, i'm just warning you about that. >> okay. i have seen them. they are great. we need too get them on to talk

about your political writing. hard to replicate on tv. >> it is on the morning of the debate, joe. >> we are showing a a lot of polls out, there is an avalanche of polls coming at us all the time, yesterday exabc news/"washington post" poll showed the president over 50% that should you can good news for the president. quinnipiac came out with a poll today has mitt romney only down by four percentage points. the momentum seems to be on mares side-- on mitt romney's s >> we are going to be living in a different world tomorrow morning, i think. >> yes. >> but the thing about this town meeting debate, when i look back at the 20 years of presidential debates, the town meeting debates are the ones that always provide the memorable moments and more often than not they

have to do with body language. they have to do with bill clinton walking up, you know, toward the woman who scad question about the economy, or al gore's stalking george w. bush. i think this is the moment where americans decide who they want to have living in their living room for the next four years. and reason prospectively, what he is going to do the next four years. 100,000 math and science teachers the only thing i have heard him propose and that ain't gonna cut it. >> steve, somebody who went through this four years ago, campaign, knowing what you know about the first debate, knowing what you know about the state of the campaign and the country what would you tell both sides today? >> an incredibly long day for both of the campaigns and for both of the candidates.

it feels like the last three weeks going into tonight. the president has to be careful he doesn't overcorrect from the first debate you not too hot, not too negative, backfire on him spectacularly, if you are mitt romney coming in tonight, you have to understand you have the momentum in the race. you were looking into the abyss before the first debate, you pull yourself out and on the precipice of moving into the lead in this race and being able, the first time, to have chrome over your own destiny in consideration of your election. if you are mitt romney, you need to connect with the middle class, can't have awkward moments with real people that will convey through the television set. >> unique challenges to this format different than the other two? >> it's a very officer.setting, even though the people are all there it's not like the town halls that take place during the campaign, people with the signs, you know, someone was quoted in the paper talking about john

mccain his love of these events, the debate setting, very different, you didn't have the guy in the shark suit. you have to be able to engage with the moderator but also engage with the audience. the third part about it you have to be able to engage with your opponent. the body language, as joe talked about hugely important. very, very complex, and any awkwardness is going to convey in a potentially very decisive way and joe is exactly right that all the memorable moments we see these personal foible.sshow themselves, left with these imageness of strange behaviors by the candidates, they almost all occur in these town hall formats. >> good for mitt romney because he has never had an awkward moment. >> that is a good point, sam stein.

for that, i'm going to go to you instead of going to sam. it is a great point because when it comes to awkward moments, there's no doubt that mitt romney has corpsered that market over the 2012 campaign, he is just not as comfortable around around people, saw how stiff he was in the primary, singing america the beautiful, davy crockett. going into this debate, everybody is talking about how the pressure is all on the president. i said before the first debate, i thought mitt romney was going to do great, he was great in debate settings and the president wasn't. pay got to say going into this debate, advantage obama. barack obama's best is when he is on stage without a tell prompter, working back and forth, playing off an audience. mitt romney at his worst is in that same situation where he is trying to relate to the kids, talking about sport ball.

he is not good at t. >> on the flip side, steve is right, progressives love obama to charge four locos and go out there and hammer mitt romney. he has to resist that temp tachlgs he can't go thought and be joe biden. joe biden did the job that joe biden had to do which was to get democrats to realize they still have a little fight in them. obama can't go there and just badger mitt romney, convey a little bit of empathy for the people in the audience it is ironic, of course two very powerful men, wealthy men who are going to now try to present themselves as empathetic to middle class women that is largely how we determine the success of the night. >> speaking of women, steve schmidt, you look at the poll out today, the gallup poll, the 12 battleground states, mitt romney's basically tied with women. a week ago, a pew poll showing the same thing. fascinates me how we, the media, obsess over these women's issues, quote, women's issue, whether it's portion or these

issues acting as if single women working in youngstown, ohio, who have two kids about to go to college respect just as worried about the whole committee as the new ceo of citigroup. >> you look at the lead the president had, widest gender gap, got up to 18 points, which is fatal for republicans, but one of the effects of the first debate, the fact the swing women voters are now looking at this election through an economy prism, not through a social issues prism that could change again but that's huge impact off of the first -- off of the first debate. joe? >> the other thing is that we have to remember that this debate is taking place on long island, or as we new yorkers call it long island. and people who live on long island are, like, diametrically opposed to the world as mitt romney has known throughout, may get a question tonight that

begins, yo mitt. and it's going to be a reich for him to relate too these people, also, just as steve was saying before about the president overreacting, romney has to guard against overconfidence. because he had such a clean kill last time. >> i got to disagree with you, joe, if you hang out with the people that jon meachum hangs without in the hamptons every summer romney might be able to relate. >> that's not long island at all. long island is massapequa, where peggy noonan came from, where i came from. >> i'm sure they are a he proud of ya. >> they reject me a long time ago. >> i hate how every debate, john, you will have people saying that the biggest debate in 8,000 years or this election

is the most important election, if you look at the trend lines, the president's back is against the wall. if he's lebron, he has to come out and win game seven against the lakers in l.a. you look at mares opportunity, look at the swing states swinging all his way. i can't really think of a debate this quite some time that had as much hanging on the outcome politically as this debate does tonight. >> i think the fray, you and i use this analogy a lot, the ring of being true, dr. kissinger used to say, is 1980, the debate was seven days out, debate in cleveland october 28th and it was not, you know, reagan had not gotten that big lead earthquake ended up afterward, numbers didn't break until the weekend and people were unsure of the challenger, didn't like the incumbent, wanted a reason to vote against the incumbent

and reagan gave it to them. >> another one, dr. schmidt should give us a dissertation on it. i think that second debate in 19 -- in 2004 after kerry had won the first one, what happened in that second one, steve? that was a town meeting as well, right? >> my recollection of the second debate is john kerry talked about, from a national security perspective that before we used military forces that there needed to be a global test and that's an example of an issue that seems small in the debate but becomes inflated in the period after the debate and continues to drive -- continues to drive the conversation. we ably, you can make the point that john kerry won that second debate, but we certainly won that debate after the buzzer, it sounded. >> when you go look and look at the totality of that campaigning the swift voting, i think the debate was ratifying something about johner can rained i don't think that's happening now. i think it's more fluid in october than that race was.

>> i tell you what willie, democrats dissparing over barack obama's first performance, i was -- i was on tv, on a panel, 2004 after george w. bush's first debate and i was enraged at bush being as bad as he was and sitting there with a lot of republicans saying i defended this guy for the past three and a half years on all of his policies and he could do no better than that? i said if he can't do any better than that he should stay home. i got to say for democrats that are concerned about barack obama, these things happen. and i think, as joe klein said, tomorrow morning we wake up and it's new world. >> that debate two weeks ago was a wakeup call, without question, for president obama. hear robert gibbs say it. they know he underperformed there's no chance he sleeps through this one. >> willie, is he still lebron? can he do it? >> of course he can still do it.

no question. >> of course. >> yeah. steve schmidt, joe klein, thanks, guys. ahead, brian sullivan on the breaking news this morning that vick cram pandit is stepping down as ceo of citigroup. tell you why that happened and the implications for wall street, next. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. vick cram pandit is stepping together for your future. ♪ vick cram pandit is stepping

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welcome back to "morning joe." time for business before the bell with brian sullivan. breaking news, a big shakeup, surprising news about vick cram pandit and citigroup. >> maybe not as much of a household name as somewhat think, here is the deal with vick cram pandit, he basically was, i don't know what you want to call it forced to step down, asked to resign, resigned on his own volition at citigroup after really a tumultuous five-year period at the helm of that bank. according to carl quintanilla at the nyse, an audible gasp at the nyse, this was not expected. another high-level executive at citigroup going to be stepping down. guys this is really the third big sea-sweep move we have seen from wall street banks in a month.

man debt the biggest. the ceo of jpmorgan chase expected to take a downgraded role in that company. the ceo of goldman sachs announced he is going to retire. you are starting to see high-level departures, whether voluntary or involuntary across banks. >> citigroup had trouble, like everybody else had trouble over the past four years, brian. anything unique that would make vick cram pandit leave at this moment? >> two things, one, all the banks had trouble but most of the banks' stocks have come back. citigroup has far underperformed morgan stanley, jpmorgan and goldman stack sa goldman sachs. if you look at it as a measure of success, pandit has not been one. he came in as a hedge fund manager, bought his hedge fund for almost $1 billion. he's a very rich guy. he has no experience at running a pure bank. citigroup basically said they want to get back to more banking, take deposits, make loans, write mortgages, kind of get away from all the complexities of the financial

models that got them in trouble in the first place. obviously a feeling in the citigroup board they need somebody who is a little better at simply traditional banking, whatever that means anymore these days. >> huge news shaking wall street this morning. vick cram pandit out as ceo of citigroup. brian sullivan, thanks for breaking it down. we will talk to you. how could you possibly criticize a man for washing dishes in a soup kitchen? >> we're not going to do that. are we? >> you can do it when it turns out he wasn't washing dishes in a soup kitchen. we will be right back. with the fidelity stock screener, you can try strategies from independent experts and see what criteria they use. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks.

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that photograph, put that back, i was actually washing dishes. true story. trust me. washing dishes.

>> no i was there you weren't. >> well, along that theme then. paul ryan takes time out from the schedule over the weekend, may have seen this to visit an ohio soup kitchen. >> oh, how nice. >> right? well, the "washington post" reports the president of an ohio charity is not pleased after the republican vice presidential nominee had his picture taken at the youngstown, ohio, soup kitchen. according to the charity's president, the candidate was washing pans that were already clean. and only after all the patrons had left the place. the head of the faith-based organization told the "post" no politicians have permission to stage events there. he accused the romney campaign of "ramrodding its way into the building" by getting one of the volunteers open the doors a romney aide tells the "washington post" that the campaign followed its usual protocol for impromptu stops and the ohio communications direct for romney said congressman ryan was pleased to bring attention

to the charity's work. >> they were ohio clean. >> you want to come in and finish the job. hard lit first political snapshot to go awry. let's walk through a few, shall we? this is 2004 when nasa posted some photographs of senator john kerry -- >> that the birth canal? >> wearing a so-called bunny suit while inspecting the space shuttle "discovery." democrats accused republicans, somehow, of using you the images through nasa-to-try to embarrass johner cannery. the 1992 presidential campaign, remember this, president george h. w. bush accused of being out of touch with average americans after reports suggested he was amazed by the checkout scanner, john miami chum, correct the record. here it is. >> this was a particularly advanced form of scanner, it was written off a pool report. it is not entirely accurate. the conventional wisdom. >> the apologists. >> what was so advanced about the scanner? >> you weren't even born. >> you don't want to know. >> the same year, how could we

forget the republican vice presidential candidate dan quayle made headlines worldwide when he tried spelling with a 12-year-old in new jersey. >> oh, boy. >> this one, i have nothing to say b. >> potato. >> the boy wrote the word correctly but mr. quayle wasn't it's satisfied until he had added an e. >> he said that is the way it was written on the flash card. >> in 1998, michael dukakis, campaign trying to present him as tough with defense. and just four years ago, this was after the campaign, we had to include it, governor sarah palin, an interview a few weeks after she and senator mccain lost the presidential elections, november 20th of 2008 up in

wasilla. she had just pardonened the turkey for thanksgiving and then gave a lengthy interview with the backdrop of a turkey being slaughtered for the holiday. >> gruesome. oh. [ woman ] ring. ring. progresso.

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we will be at rack's downtown eatery and tavern, there live at 5:30 a.m., way too early all the way through 9:00, "morning joe," monday and tuesday, previewing and reviewing the florida debate. up next, what, if anything, did we learn today? i'm meteorologist bill karens for your business travel forecast. nice day for travel, mild too, 70 and 80-degree temperatures, st. louis, up to minneapolis today, 78 degrees. east coast a little easy out there it will be a dry day, plenty of sunshine. as we go through the next couple of days, enjoy the warmth while it lasts. ♪

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standing in the middle of a line of stuffed suits is sam stein's big sister, allison. allison, welcome. >> thank you, willie. >> how bad were the beatings you administered sam as a child? >> severe. >> easy to pick on, right? yes. look at that. >> did you learn anything today during this program? >> i learned that i'm even more proud of sammy than i had realized. >> awww. >> sammy. what do you say back to your big sister, sam? >> thank you for coming on. i guess childhood wasn't all that bad after all. >> you there go. >> john heilman, what did you learn today? >> in addition to the fact after three hours of unrelenting sausages, it is nice to have a lady up here. george mcgovern is going to hospice and that is a sad day. 's great man. great american. and a true hero. >> how you made that turn, we will never know. jon meachum? >> learned that robert gibbs has not lost a step. >> mike barnicle and heilman say it is possible to get a pizza deli